Dear Digital X-Ray Insider,
Interventional radiology is on the front burner this week in your Digital X-Ray Community. A new report examining the health of the discipline in Europe recommended a number of steps to help meet growing demand for interventional procedures.
Most of the recommendations concern ways to address a looming personnel shortage. Interventional procedures are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to open surgery, but not enough interventional radiologists are being trained to meet this demand. That's making it more difficult for many interventional practices to provide emergency service on a 24-hour basis.
Learn more about the steps that should be taken in our Insider Exclusive -- many of them are also applicable to the U.S. interventional community.
Elsewhere in digital x-ray, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming one of the hottest themes as start-up firms and major OEMs develop algorithms for analyzing radiography images. For example, researchers from Singapore developed an AI algorithm based on convolutional neural networks to analyze wrist x-rays to detect and show the position of fractures.
In a major news development in January, researchers from Stanford University released a huge database of over 224,000 chest x-rays that can be used to develop AI algorithms. And U.K. researchers found that an AI algorithm they developed was able to accurately identify abnormal findings on chest radiographs, helping clinicians triage images that need to be interpreted sooner.
Finally, disturbing news has been coming from coal country, where a resurgence of black lung disease is occurring due to a change in coal mining techniques. There is a federal program to screen miners with x-ray for signs of the disease, but the initiative has become a political football, with the Kentucky Legislature passing a law that bars radiologists from reading the exams.
These stories and more are available in your Digital X-Ray Community.
